Report: Actress Elizabeth Taylor Dies at 79

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Elizabeth Taylor, circa 1952

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Hollywood movie legend Elizabeth Taylor has died at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles of congestive heart failure, her publicist announced on Wednesday. She was 79.

(More on TIME.com: See TIME’s photo-essay “Remembering Elizabeth Taylor.”)

Taylor entered the medical center two months ago for treatment for heart ailments. Doctors said her condition had stabilized, but several complications persisted over time.

“She was surrounded by her children — Michael Wilding, Christopher Wilding, Liza Todd and Maria Burton,” Taylor’s publicist, Sally Morrison, said in a statement released on Wednesday.

The two-time Oscar-winning actress had announced that she was having a heart procedure. She tweeted that the operation was “very new and involves repairing my leaky valve using a clip device, without open heart surgery so that my heart will function better.”

Born in London to American parents in 1932, Taylor was known for her iconic performances in films like the 1963 Cleopatra and for her Academy Award–winning turns in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? and Butterfield 8. She was also known for her several marriages, most famously twice to actor Richard Burton.

(More on TIME.com: See pictures of Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton.)

She became noted for the early attention she brought to the AIDS crisis, particularly after her longtime friend Rock Hudson died of the disease in 1985. Her efforts culminated in the founding of the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation.